 One day last week, on a warm and sunny late October day, Bill came in from being outside in the back and told me there was a bat on the cement steps. "What?" I said and immediately went downstairs to look. Well, sure 'nuff, there was this little fellow all hunkered down on the top step. You don't usually see bats just lying around on the ground like that so I assumed that he was sick. I put on some thick rubber gloves, Bill got a jar and punched some holes in the lid, and I gently picked the bat up and placed him in the jar on top of a small clean rag. That is what you see in this picture. The bat on the rag with his nose pressed up against the glass and his wings folded up under him. He is an awesome looking critter. He didn't like me picking him up and he bared all his teeth at me but he didn't flutter or jump at me. I thought even moreso that he was sick. Or lethargic since he is nocturnal and would normally be asleep that time of day.
Immediately, I called Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation. I knew that someone they knew rehabbed bats. This is the organization I worked with when I rehabbed raccoons and rabbits two years ago. Their phone number, in case you need to call them to get help for a wild animal if you find one, is (513) 756-9240 or (513) 756-0782. Someone answered the phone and I explained what I found. He said get him out of the jar and hang him upside down in a tree or on a stone wall. They can't fly off the ground. They have to be able to drop down. So, I thanked him and took the jar outside. Getting my gloves on again, I went over to the woodpile. Gently, I shook him out of the jar. Again, I had my gloves on to pick him up. As he came out of the jar, he hung onto the rag and he landed upside down on top of the woodpile. That gave me an idea. Since he was already hanging on the rag, I just lifted the rag up high. Sure enough, that gave him the droppability that he needed. He unhinged his wings, swung off the rag gracefully and swooped to the back of the yard. Quickly, I lost sight of him. He was gone and he was well. That I was thankful of.
Bill just had to do it. He saw how the cats were totally enjoying the catquarium so he caved and put one in his window, too. There have been less fights and frumps since he did that. Now both cats can come in and find a spot open for them. Well, unless the orange cat comes down from upstairs and has jumped in. The colors have been pretty this year. Bill and I drove around the city a bit and took pictures of the trees in all their glory. The maples seem to be the ones most colorful and the last to lose their leaves. The box elder by my window was kinda yellowish and lost its leaves a month ago. Next to go where the two walnuts trees. Seems as soon as they dropped their last walnut, the leaves started coming off. They were an unspectactular rust brown. The sycamores are a dark orangish brown and are in the process of losing their leaves now. They're about halfway there. But the mulberry has just turned a greenish yellow and is holding onto to its load for a while yet. Getting leaves off the lawn is a snap for Bill. He wisely bought a mulching mower years ago. It mulches the leaves and disperses them back into the lawn. As the mower goes over the leaf laden lawn, it looks like the mower is sucking them up. Full leaf cover ahead of the row, shorn green after. It's really neat to watch. Why more people don't do this, we don't know. Our neighbor goes around on his riding mower collecting all the leaves and grass in a big bag that attaches to his mower. Every now and then he stops and empties the bag into one corner of his yard. That pile is about half a story high now and as long as a pontoon. We keep wondering what he'll do with it when it gets way out of control. Here's a picture of a tree on our street.  |
We think we saw him last night swooping over the deck while we were enjoying another unusually warm November day. As night fell, we saw a bat flying above us, back and forth trying to find the last bits of bugs in the air. Usually there are two bats overhead, this time there was just this one. We like to think that it was the rescued bat. Do a good deed today. Rescue a wild animal.